If you’ve decided to put up a business, then this just might be one of the best decisions you’ll make in your life. Starting a business is one of the surest ways to get wealthy, and if you start a business you love, you get a lifetime fulfillment as well. It’s a win-win situation.
However, you may not know that 90% of startups fail. To be in the 10% that succeed, you need to learn everything you can about business.
In this post, we’ll help you understand the five stages of business growth so you can plan accordingly and make informed decisions.
Table of Contents
Here are the 5 Stages of Business Growth
Stage One: The Development Stage
This is the start of the business life cycle where the business is just the idea and before establishing official existence. At this point, you assess how viable your business could be, your potential target market, establishing the business structure, and gauging whether the business will be profitable.
Of course, this is the stage where you need to find financial resources to launch and run the business to success. You can call this the feasibility stage as you’ll have to weigh all your options, decide whether you have what it takes to make it successful, and do some soul searching.
Stage Two: The Start-Up
Once you are done testing your business idea, you make it official and launch the business. This is possibly the riskiest stage of business growth, and the mistakes you make at this phase may impact the business years from now.
The most significant aspect here is adaptability, as you’ll spend most of this stage tweaking products based on customer feedback. It may get confusing, but it’s vital that you don’t give up because you’ll get a breakthrough.
Stage Three: Growth and Establishment
By the time you get to this stage, you’ll be generating consistent income and attracting new customers. Recurring revenue will cover ongoing expenses, so cash flow will improve, and it’s possible that you’ll see profits improve as well.
The biggest challenge you’re most likely to face, like most entrepreneurs at this stage, is dividing your stage for all the demands that’ll require your attention. You’ll be expanding your workforce, dealing with your competitors, attending to new customers, and managing an increase in revenue.
Stage Four: Expansion
Once you pass the growth stage, now you can expand your business, and it’ll feel like a routine. You’ll have employee handling areas you no longer manage, and the business will have a firm presence in the industry.
It’s at this stage that you may start considering various business growth strategies that’ll help with the expansion of your business. You’ll see rapid growth in cash flow and revenue, but you’ll still need careful continuous planning to avoid expanding too carelessly.
Stage Five: Maturity
When you navigate the expansion stage successfully, you’ll finally reach the maturity stage where you’ll be seeing a stable income and revenue stream. At this point, you may decide further growth or exit the business. Ask yourself if the business can sustain further growth and whether you can afford an unsuccessful expansion.
These are the five stages of business growth you should be ready for. You need to plan carefully for all stages for your business to successfully reach the last stage.
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